F1 News
How many pole positions has George Russell achieved in Formula 1?
George Russell has now achieved three pole positions during his Formula 1 career after his first pole at the British Grand Prix in 2024. All three of these have come during his stint at Mercedes alongside Lewis Hamilton. Russell joined the team in 2022 and secured his first Saturday P1 just 13 events into his stint at the German team.
George Russell was once known as 'Mr Saturday' during his time at Williams. The Brit would've expected to rack up pole position after pole position when he moved to Mercedes, but the car has been largely uncompetitive since 2022. Still, Russell has two pole positions to his name in Formula 1 and during 2024, he is consistently getting the better of his teammate Lewis Hamilton.
Russell's list of pole positions
Russell became the 19th different British driver to secure pole position in Formula 1. He achieved the result during the 2022 Hungarian Grand Prix. Mercedes struggled with the rules and regulations introduced at the start of that season, but one of the highlights came when Russell got his maiden pole.
World Championship leader Max Verstappen had issues with his Red Bull car in Q3, opening the door for a surprise pole position. It looked like it was going to go to Ferrari, but Russell posted the last lap and pipped Carlos Sainz by less than one-tenth. Russell dropped behind his teammate in the race, but still managed to finish third.
Russell then had to wait nearly two years for his second pole position. Russell set a 1:12:000 in his first run of Q3 at the 2024 Canadian Grand Prix. The challenging conditions helped converge the grid together, but nobody could topple that time. Verstappen managed to match it, but Russell took the honours because he set the time first.
His third pole position will be one that sticks in his memory for a very long time after taking P1 at his home Grand Prix at Silverstone. In what started as a wet qualifying session but became dry come Q3, the Mercedes pair continued to improve as the day went on and showed some improved and impressive one-lap pace. Hamilton placed himself on provisional pole as the chequered flag dropped, but Russell found the extra tenth of a second to give himself his third pole position. Lando Norris took P3 behind the two Mercedes drivers to make the British crowd go wild as a British 1-2-3 in qualifying was achieved for the first time in F1 history.